Fact-checking the Kansas Declaration

posted at 1:30 pm on December 8, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

Barack Obama declared in Kansas this week that his re-election bid would constitute a fight against income inequality. According to a fact check by the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, it’s also going to be a fight against hard facts and inconvenient truths. Obama lashed out at Republicans and George Bush for economic outcomes that have mainly come during his own stewardship of the economy:

Obama’s claim of the “slowest job growth,” in fact, includes the loss of jobs under his administration. The White House provided as evidence a report on a New York Times blog that was based on gross domestic product data through 2010, or the first two years of Obama’s administration.

The White House also cited a Center on American Progress report on job growth through 2007, which showed monthly job growth of 68,000 jobs during the Bush business cycle. But, since the recession ended, job growth has been even more anemic under Obama — just 40,500 jobs a month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. … [I]t seems odd to keep blaming poor job growth on the Bush tax cuts, especially because Obama himself pushed through a nearly $1 trillion stimulus and took other actions that have affected the economy, for better or worse.

It’s more than just odd — it’s asinine. The rate cuts took place in 2001 and 2003, and have remained in place ever since. If they damaged job creation, then we wouldn’t have seen the explosive job growth we did in 2004-2006, when the economy added over 6 million jobs. The loss of those jobs had nothing to do with the maintenance of existing tax rates, but in a financial crush caused by the collapse in housing prices which turned government-backed mortgage securities largely worthless, wiping out trillions in accumulated capital.

That’s hardly the only asinine assertion in Obama’s speech, though:

Finally, Obama blames the Bush tax cuts for “massive deficits.” It is certainly true that the Bush tax cuts helped blow a hole in the budget. But they did not do it all by themselves. Welooked at length at this issue earlier this year, assisted by new Congressional Budget Office data.

The data showed that the biggest contributor to the disappearance of projected surpluses was increased spending, which accounted for 36.5 percent of the decline in the nation’s fiscal position, followed by incorrect CBO estimates, which accounted for 28 percent. The Bush tax cuts (along with some Obama tax cuts) were responsible for just 24 percent.

Thus it is simply wrong to blame only the Bush tax cuts for the deficits now faced by the country, especially three years into another presidential term.

Kessler misses another problem, which is the massive increase in budgetary and non-budgetary spending by Democrats after taking control of Congress and the White House. The last fully Republican budget, FY2007, spent $2.77 trillion. Democrats took control of Congress and raised annual spending levels in just three years by over a trillion dollars, while tax receipts declined because of the deep recession. On top of that, Obama pushed through an $800 billion stimulus that supposedly was going to restart job creation, and which failed miserably. Blaming Bush for deficits in 2009, 2010, and 2011 isn’t just wrong, it’s a flat-out lie, and a very self-serving lie at that.

Finally, Kessler strikes at the heart of Obama’s crusade for fairness, which Obama framed thusly: “Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent — 1 percent. That is the height of unfairness.” What factual support did the White House provide for this argument? Well … none, as Kessler reports. They took the claim from a Think Progress post about a conversation that took place on Bloomberg TV. That puts the intellectual substance of this claim, and the entire presidential address, at the same level as a poorly-sourced gossip column. Kessler did a little research an discovered that more than half of the country’s 400 billionaires had a marginal tax rate of 35% or more, while only 17 had a marginal rate of 0-26% — and even those probably didn’t see much income, but mainly received capital gains instead.

In response to Obama’s nonsense, Kessler gives the President three Pinocchios. Maybe he should have added an Elmer Gantry or two as well.

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This is scary. We know he lied (again), even WaPo knows he lied (again), anyone who pays attention knows he lied (again). The problem is that there seemed to be a couple of thousand people listening to him that were actually cheering. “Tell a lie enough times and it becomes the truth”–I seem to recall some mid century German saying something like that.

A friend of mine still insists this economy is, indeed, Bush’s fault. I cite a number of the same reasons stated in this article. She thinks I am making the up because she knows (heh, with good reason) that I despise the president Official Leader of the Democrat Party. Always have, always will–he is no leader, he is of questionable intelligence, he whines, he points his bony fingers, he accepts no responsibility for anything.

Sadly, the uninformed masses believe him. How do we cut through the noise and get the facts out there in time to save the world?

GeorgieGirl9 on December 8, 2011 at 1:52 PM

The ownership of the big three channels would have to change, the ownership of the major newspapers would have to change… They only employ folks who spew forth liberal thinking and perspectives…

So short of hostile take-over of those businesses by folks willing to put forth facts instead of liberal spin/ignoring things that liberals would rather have buried…. the answer is we can’t and we will not.

Couple that with the education system being run by liberals and you have little to no shot. Have to personally explain things to those around you to spur change and ultimately produce people who are willing to remove the current individuals in the government who implement their liberal agenda on the education system from power and completely re-design the education system….

I guess it is getting a little tough for Teh Won to pull a croud. Resorting to gatherings at high schools more than likely comprised of KNEA members and pubescent teens, where he lies through his teeth about what is going on with this country.

Nobama lies. His administration lies. His lackies in the media lie for him. Is anyone really surprised by the latest incarnation of his account of American history?

Back from a three year tour of Europe, Scandinavia and the Sub-continent. No searing witty commentary banter yet, I am just trying out my new handle and status as a returned Hot Gasser! Happy to be back and thanks to the KH for the help
Free the Vipers!

Obama… also responded to a recent Republican push to require him to approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. “However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline,” he said, “they’re going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance.”

Extending the tax cut will, as anyone paying attention knows, will not produce a net gain in jobs or the same plan presently in place would be producing jobs. The extension includes a tax hike on “teh 1%” which will actually cost jobs. And you don’t create jobs by extending unemployment, you create extended periods of unemployment.

He can’t be this stupid, but apparently he can think that we’re this stupid.

This was an Obama speech beyond the pale, the President is depending on short memories to foist massive neo-progressivism on this country after our parents and grandparents learned its awfulness the hard way got rid of most of it and fought it overseas in its many different forms, the Soviet Union may have fallen, the communist regimes world wide have come, gone and come again, and now its our turn to fight it here, again.

Unless we elect people who recognize the threat and who are willing to fight and win, Obama’s determination to create his vision could be the end.

Finally, Kessler strikes at the heart of Obama’s crusade for fairness, which Obama framed thusly: “Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent — 1 percent. That is the height of unfairness.” What factual support did the White House provide for this argument? Well … none, as Kessler reports. They took the claim from a Think Progress post about a conversation that took place on Bloomberg TV. That puts the intellectual substance of this claim, and the entire presidential address, at the same level as a poorly-sourced gossip column.

And yet, when Michelle Bachman used the same level of research and sourcing for her Gardisil claim, it all but ended her presidential run. Only 11 more months of this chump and then we can start picking up the pieces.

Given what this socialist POS is doing to our nation, and what he has in store for us should he be reelected, we should erect a statue of Benedict Arnold on horseback made of solid gold on the National Mall, complete with a full, grovelling apology for calling him a traitor.

this is exactly how the Democrats won in 2008. This is exactly how Katie Couric and other liberals “present” the “news”. The brain dead and the busy simply throw on the evening news, hear the sound bites repeated over and over, pick up the newspaper in the morning and see the same headlines, and believe it.

Osawatomie KS was the perfect place for this speech. I just didn’t know they let the mental health patients out to clap for Pull-Ups. A new type of therapy?

As I said before, open his college transcripts. It’s time the media finally vetted Obama. We saw Bush’s and Kerry’s in 2004 (and found W did better than Lurch!). Time to show that the Job-Creator-in-Chief hasn’t a clue how jobs are created.